LB 

V185 

.86 





Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



LIVING TEACHERS 



38p Jftarffaret J&latterp 

Uniform with this volume 

LIVING TEACHERS. 
THE TEACHER'S CANDLESTICK. 
THE CHARM OF THE IMPOSSIBLE. 
THE SEED, THE SOIL, AND THE 

SOWER. 
THE TEACHER— REAL AND IDEAL. 
Each, tall i6mo, boards, 35 cents net. 



TALKS WITH THE TRAINING 

CLASS. 

1 2mo, boards, 60 cents net. 
Paper, 25 cents net. 



F. M. BARTON COMPANY 
Cleveland, Ohio 



LIVING TEACHERS 



BY 



MARGARET SLATTERY 

// 



CLEVELAND, OHIO 
F. M. BARTON COMPANY 

J 909 



*%?Mif*M#! 






i-, 
-J 



j \& 



Copyright, 1909 
By F. M. Barton Company 



Cla.A,;'' 4 - • 96 T 

JUL 12 'f 909 



LIVING TEACHERS 

I SHALL never forget my first 
glimpse of it hanging there on 
the wall before me as I opened the 
door of the art gallery. Outside the 
sun beat fiercely down upon the city 
streets, and the worn faces of the peo- 
ple dragging themselves back to work 
in scorching mills and stores and shops 
had plunged me into the depths of 
questioning, as to the why of things 
in this busy, hurrying world of ours. 
But I forgot the problems. Forgot 
everything! There it was in the plain, 
dark frame, that wonderful picture of, 
the sea. The fury of a storm was 
upon it, and the wind had piled up 
giant waves deep crested with foam 
as white as snow, just ready to break. 

7 



LIVING TEACHERS 

Nicely poised — just ready — and as I 
looked I half expected to see them 
dash upon the waiting shore. But all 
was still. I stood with fascinated gaze 
— but they did not break — I was look- 
ing at a picture of the sea. For ten 
long years and more it might hang 
there, but that soft, white crest would 
never break, creep along the sand and 
dash against the solid rock. It was 
just a picture — not the sea. 

Then I remembered that other day 
when standing upon the rocks of our 
northern shore, I had seen the sea. It 
was smooth as glass, deep and charm- 
ing and still; then a wind in the 
night, the pouring rain, and morning 
broke. I braced myself against a rock, 
not daring to approach the place 
where yesterday I sat so calmly. Now 



LIVING TEACHERS 

the thundering crash of the breakers 
upon the shore thrilled me, the spray 
dashed over me, the craft securely an- 
chored in the harbor plunged and 
rocked on the giant waves and the 
steamer dared not try to make her 
landing. Every wave as it pounded 
the granite rock seemed to shout to 
me; over and over on the wild surges 
it came, "I am strength — force — 
power — the sea — the real sea." Here 
on the wall before me in the quiet 
of the gallery hung "The Sea" — over 
yonder, breaking upon the northern 
shore was the sea. 

There was such a difference. Why 
did one please my eye and the other 
thrill my soul? You know — one was 
a picture — the other was the sea. One 
was a good copy, a carefully wrought 

9 



LIVING TEACHERS 

representation; the other was the sea in 
reality, with its boundless shores, its 
hidden secrets, its resistless power 
wrung from fathomless depths. It was 
real. Reality, that was what made the 
difference. 

Reality gives power. I knew then 
and I know now that it is even so with 
men and women. Especially is it true 
of us who are teachers, that reality 
alone gives power. 

What are Living Teachers? They 
are real, genuine like the great Christ. 
He was never in any sense a copy, an 
echo, and so he had strength and force. 
He was real and therein lay his power. 

He was a real teacher because he 
had something to teach. Something 
he believed would make men better 
and the world happier. He believed 

10 



LIVING TEACHERS 

it so profoundly that he said it would 
solve all the problems of mankind. He 
was so glad to teach it that he sat on 
the mountain side, crossed and re- 
crossed the lake, met his enemies in 
the synagogue, stopped in the high- 
ways and by-ways of Jerusalem, went 
to the feast and the wedding — yes, 
even talked by the well with a woman 
of Samaria. All this that he might 
have the chance to teach, "I am the 
way, the truth, and the life." 

He taught because he wanted to. 
No one drove him forth, no one 
pressed his duty upon him, no one ever 
said, "You ought to." He said, "I 
must." And so men listened to what 
he taught, women believed his mes- 
sage, and little children followed him. 
After more than nineteen centuries 

11 



LIVING TEACHERS 

men trust their souls to what he said. 

Yes, he had something to teach and 
taught it, eagerly, with enthusiasm and 
authority. The real teacher does that 
today, and he teaches with power 
wherever he is. The reason there is 
so much mechanical, empty, forced 
teaching today is just because men and 
women have nothing to teach. No 
vital, life-giving belief, no personal 
knowledge of the thing to be taught 
thrills their souls until it must be said. 

No one can give outward expression 
to that which is not within. He may 
say, but unless he is, it will not count. 
He may say it beautifully, but he will 
be only like the picture without the 
moving power of the real sea. 

Look at a class of school children 
with me and see what I mean. 

12 



LIVING TEACHERS 

One day, in my early teaching, at a 
loss for a subject for a language les- 
son, I finally chose, "Animals of Other 
Countries." I showed a few pictures, 
assigned a chapter to be read, talked 
about two or three animals and gave 
out the paper. The children were list- 
less, uninterested, thought long and 
wrote little. When I collected the 
papers some had only one paragraph, 
and that made up of names. The 
lesson was a dead failure. 

A year or two ago a circus was com- 
ing to the city. One had to know 
it; a blind man could scarcely pass 
the glaring bill boards and not know. 
Every child was intensely interested. 
I made use of the interest and centered 
it upon the animals, choosing the tiger, 
lion, elephant and polar bear. I de- 

13 



LIVING TEACHERS 

scribed their homes and habits, gave 
anecdotes with real interest, for I 
wanted them to see the animals intelli- 
gently. The "day after" came, and 
when it was time for the language les- 
son, I said, "You are no longer chil- 
dren. Some of you are polar bears, 
some tigers, some lions. You may 
choose which one you will be and write 
your story, using the subject, 'The 
Story of My Life.' Begin something 
like this, 'Oh, it is so warm, so warm! 
These cakes of ice are so small. Where 
are the great fields of snow and huge 
icebergs I used — ' or, 'Ha! I wish the 
bars of this cage were not so strong. 
How I should like to break them and 
get back to my beautiful jungle.' " 

They took their pens eagerly, they 
wrote hurriedly, they paid no attention 

14 



LIVING TEACHERS 

to position. At the end of the period 
they were disappointed. They had 
not finished. I saw Harriet steal out 
her paper during history and write a 
line and when Jimmy passed out at 
dismissal he astonished me by the 
question, "Say, kin I come in early 
and finish mine? I'm a tiger." Jimmy 
asking to come early to work! 

I wish you might have read those 
stories. Interesting, great freedom of 
expression, dramatic, every one of 
them good. Why the great contrast 
between these and those of my early 
teaching? You know. The whole 
thing was real to the latter class of 
children. It was no longer a dead 
subject, it lived. They had seen the 
animals, their interest was keen, they 
had something to say — they said it. 

15 



LIVING TEACHERS 

If we as teachers could only catch 
the deep significance of it! If to us 
the great subject we have to teach 
could be always vital, forceful, real! 
Then we should have things to say and 
they would listen because of the irre- 
sistible power of the living teacher, 
whose message springs from the depths 
of reality. 

I saw another picture in the gallery 
that afternoon. It was a baby sitting 
on the floor. One little shoe had been 
pulled off, playthings were scattered 
about, but the baby scorned them all. 
Two tiny hands reached upward and 
the sweet little face said so eloquently, 
"Take me, take me," that I almost 
stretched out my arms in answer to 
the appeal. Yet this was not the baby 
I could love. This baby, whose little 

16 



LIVING TEACHERS 

outstretched arm would never tire, 
whose blue eyes would never shut, who 
would never change through the pass- 
ing of the years, quickly lost its charm 
for me. 

I remembered that other baby as I 
had seen it in the nurse's arms. Such 
tiny hands, eyes that could not bear 
the light, a precious bundle of hungry 
senses she was then, a promise — that 
was all. But yesterday as I passed her 
home, that tiny hand pounded hard on 
the window, and a sweet little voice 
speaking words bade me come in. And 
I knew as I looked at her that in a 
few years those same little hands would 
hold a pen, and that little tongue re- 
peat the wisdom of the ages that are 
past! A few more, and in some office 
those same little hands will fly over 

17 



LIVING TEACHERS 

the typewriter, or in the parlor bring 
music from ivory keys, or in the busy 
school point out the way of knowl- 
edge, perchance be laid in tender 
blessings upon the heads of little chil- 
dren of her own. Who shall say? 

She has power and potentiality. 
The dynamic is within her. She is 
alive! And while she lives she must 
change. The pictured baby can never 
change. While she lives she must 
grow. The pictured baby can never 
grow. 

The real baby will grow unless, 
alas, some dread disease should seize 
her. Imagine the agony of that 
mother, if one day the physician, turn- 
ing away from her anxious face, should 
say, "It is even as I feared, she may 
live, but she will never develop, she 

18 



LIVING TEACHERS 

cannot grow." To live a score of 
years and more, a baby still, with the 
charm of her babyhood gone! It were 
no wonder if the broken-hearted 
mother whispered, "It were better she 
had never been born." 

Yes, the normal, healthy child must 
grow, must develop, must change. 
Change! When it implies develop- 
ment, what a splendid word it is. And 
yet some men and women are so afraid 
of it. Some teachers even, fear it, 
look at it with suspicion. To them 
life means growth, development, 
change, up to a certain point — then 
there is nothing beyond. I have seen 
such wrap the cloak of complacent 
self-satisfaction about them and all 
unknowing begin to die. 

Let me show you what I mean. A 

19 



LIVING TEACHERS 

while ago I visited a grade in a gram- 
mar school where I had been myself 
a pupil. The teacher, the same one I 
had then, was teaching South Amer- 
ica. She was teaching it exactly as 
she had when I was in that grade; 
the same topics, using the same books. 
It all came back to me; I could al- 
most have recited it myself. Think 
of it! South America in the same way 
as when I sat in that room and com- 
mitted the second paragraph to mem- 
ory! The South America which was 
then has gone. But there was no word 
of new railways, no word of revolu- 
tions, not a whisper of the wonderful 
awakening just waiting for the canal, 
nothing of the events taking place that 
very week in our fascinating sister 
country. Just names of rivers and 

20 



LIVING TEACHERS 

mountains and plains. I asked if she 
were using the putty maps ; if she were 
trying the quick sketching to fix rivers 
and plains in memory and show the 
slope of the land; if the children had 
made the canal zone in sand and un- 
derstand any of the baffling prob- 
lems the engineers must solve. She 
shrugged her shoulders, and said she 
did not take much stock in the new 
fads, and it would be time enough to 
teach the canal when it was finished. 
Her children were listless and unin- 
terested, and "don't like geography." 
Men and women, that teacher was 
dead and didn't know it! It was not 
the number of years she had taught, 
not at all; it was, that back there 
somewhere, she came to a place where 
she thought she "knew how to teach 

21 



LIVING TEACHERS 

geography," knew it all, stopped grow- 
ing and began to die. 

I know a man in Sunday school who 
has a class of boys ranging from 
eleven to sixteen years of age. He 
won't have the class divided. He 
won't have his school graded. He does 
not believe in the graded work or 
school. He asks questions from his 
quarterly around the class in turn, 
dealing out a few morals in an impres- 
sive tone at the close. He lives in a 
community where parents make their 
boys to go to Sunday school, else he 
wouldn't have any. He says the good 
old way is all right, and what was 
good enough for his father is good 
enough for him. But the strange 
thing about him to me is this: His 
fathers religion is good enough for 

22 



LIVING TEACHERS 

him, but that is all. His father used 
to drive leisurely down to his office, 
stopping to chat with his neighbors 
by the way — he rides down in an auto 
at limit speed. His father kept his 
own books and wrote his own letters — 
he has an adding machine and keeps 
an expert stenographer. His father 
made two railway journeys during his 
life time, the longest two hundred 
miles — he has crossed the continent 
and the Atlantic. His father lived in 
a very plain, ordinary house, heated 
by fire-place and stove, and drew water 
from a well — he has a modern .home, 
steam-heated and the water from the 
reservoir is carefully filtered, some- 
times boiled and put in the cooler. 

One day I reminded him of these 
facts. He said he could not live and 

23 



LIVING TEACHERS 

do business as his father had, condi- 
tions had changed. I said he could 
not teach as his father had, conditions 
had changed. He said that was a dif- 
ferent matter. But I do not yet see 
it, although I have tried. 

Yes, growth implies change, and the 
man or woman who refuses all change 
ceases to grow. When one ceases to 
grow he begins to die. 

The great fundamental laws behind 
all growth are unchanged, unchang- 
ing, eternal. But these very laws in 
operation cause change. 

Ah, how the old world has changed 
since that day when Christ went out 
through the city gates to his cross on 
the hill! 

When I ask myself what has been 
the cause of the great upheavals, and 

24 



LIVING TEACHERS 

the marvelous, almost incredible, 
changes slowly working their way out 
in the world since He came, I find one 
answer. He is the cause. His works, 
His life, His love, His great passion 
and His greater triumph, these have 
wrought the changes, these explain the 
growth. And if I am to be a grow- 
ing, changing, Living Teacher, I must 
come into close, direct, uninterrupted 
contact with that life-giving power 
which was in Him. 

I must give myself freely, sincerely, 
without reserve to the fundamental 
laws of growth. 

What are those laws? I must know. 
I cannot move, sleeping, dying or dead 
through a living world, throbbing 
with power, suffering with pain, eager 

25 



LIVING TEACHERS 

with longing. A live world demands 
a living teacher — and I must live. 
^7 But I cannot truly live, I cannot 
grow, unless I take means to support 
life and develop it. The things needed 
are so simple, so easy of access, so per- 
fectly possible, that in our eager 
searching after means of growth we 
pass them by. Four things we must 
have — light and air, food and exercise. 
Light! It is everywhere. We have 
but to open the windows, throw wide 
the blinds, and it streams in. How 
much we need it! We do not know 
all there is to know. Our century has 
not reached God. Those who loved 
the Christ in the early years believed 
they knew all. They expected him to 
return in a little while and looked for 
their reward. How little even Peter, 

26 



LIVING TEACHERS 

James and John knew of the majesty 
and power of their Lord. They 
thought their little world was all, 
while silent, undiscovered, undreamed 
of, lay the great country where today 
a mighty people bow in reverence at 
the mention of His name. 

Martin Luther, filled with the glory 
of the fact that "the just shall live by 
faith," thought he had found "all 
truth." He stood only at the thresh- 
old. 

The Pilgrim Fathers, sailing across 
the treacherous sea in their tiny ships, 
to kneel on the bleak shore of the new 
country, were but opening another 
door. In their blindness they reached 
out eager hands to close all others save 
their own. 

No, we do not know God. But he 
27 



LIVING TEACHERS 

knows us. Sees us put up our high 
board fences, our granite walls, close 
our doors, draw the curtains of our 
prejudice, and shut out the light. 
Sees us — and waits with the patience 
which belongs only to omnipotence — 
waits, until some greater soul breaks 
down a barrier, pushes a prejudice 
aside, and lets in another beam of 
light. "A new truth discovered," men 
say; some doubt, some accept, and 
some greatly troubled throw away 
what truth they have. A new truth? 
No! Truth is the same. It is fixed, 
unchangeable, eternal, true! Not new 
truth, just another beam of light re- 
vealing a little more of the glorious 
whole. 

Last fall when the harvest moon was 
full and hung so big and round and 

28 



LIVING TEACHERS 

low in the sky, a little eight-year-old 
went to the postoffice with me. As we 
walked along he suddenly looked up. 
"See, the moon is following us," he 
said, "it goes right along as fast as we 
do." I explained that the moon did 
not really move along with us, just 
looked as if it did. He did not be- 
lieve it. When we reached the office, 
pointing his small finger straight at 
the tower he said in most convincing 
tone, "There's that moon right over 
the tower; it did follow us, look!" I 
shook my head but said nothing. 
There was nothing I could say. We 
went home, the great shining ball fol- 
lowing us all the way, and when I 
left him at his door, with glad trium- 
phant voice he called out, "Look, look 

29 



LIVING TEACHERS 

at it! There it is right over your house ; 
it came back with us again." 

When he went in, I stood looking 
up at it, so bright, so still, so near. I 
knew that it was far, far away; that 
it was cold and dark, shining only 
with borrowed light. I knew I told 
the child the truth. I knew it did not 
follow us. I knew how to explain the 
delusion — but I could not explain it 
to him. He was so little, so limited, 
his knowledge was so meagre, there 
were no words, no terms, no medium 
through which I might give my 
knowledge to him. For several years 
yet the moon will follow him up town 
and return with him. But little by 
little, step by step, I shall teach him, 
until some day he reaches the place 
where I can explain it all, and have 

30 



LIVING TEACHERS 

the joy of seeing the light break over 
his face, and hear those words a 
teacher loves, "Oh, now I see." Then 
I can open his eyes to new mysteries 
and teach him again to "see." And 
so he grows. 

Men and women, I have often won- 
dered if life does not mean that I am 
being taught, little by little, step by 
step, until I shall reach the place 
where the Great Teacher can explain, 
and I can understand and cry out with 
my small boy, "Oh, now I see." 

And when I have seen, He will 
show me a new mystery and teach me 
to understand. And so I grow. 

But alas for me, if I shut out the 
light. Then the healthful, bracing, 
life-giving air goes too, and leaves me 
weak and anaemic, ready to receive the 

31 



LIVING TEACHERS 

deadly germs that lurking in the dark, 
easily find lodgment in my soul. 

If one is to grow he must have food. 
Not any kind of food that will satisfy 
hunger for the moment, but food of 
the right sort. 

Have you ever seen them, the tiny 
babies brought by careworn mothers 
to city clinics? So small, weak and 
puny, suffering from no disease, Just 
starving for food? The little faces 
haunt one for days. I saw one baby 
I shall never forget. I should have 
been almost afraid to hold the tiny, 
frail, little thing; but the mother held 
it so tenderly, so close. The doctor 
thought a long time and then gave the 
formula for the milk which he hoped 
would save it. It was successful — just 
the food the child needed. At the end 

32 



LIVING TEACHERS 

of three months the little face was 
round, eyes bright and hands so differ- 
ent. With joy in her face the mother 
told of the weekly gain. The doctor 
listened and questioned, changing and 
adapting his formula to meet the need 
of the child. Years ago that child 
would have died, starved, in the moth- 
er's arms. But now we have learned 
that food of the right sort means nour- 
ishment, life and growth. We are be- 
ginning to understand, too, that that 
which is true of physical life is true of 
mental and spiritual; that our prob- 
lem is often just to find the formula, 
to be able to supply food that will 
nourish and build up the tissue of 
mind and soul. Yet how slow we are 
to do it. 

How little the average teacher 

33 



LIVING TEACHERS 

thinks. He says there is no time to 
think, but that is not quite true,. One 
may think in so many places when he 
has learned how. I may stand some 
rainy night in a crowded trolley car 
holding on to the strap, pushed and 
jostled by people who are tired and 
cross, and think thoughts that reach 
down to the heart of things and up to 
the heart of God. Or I may simply 
hold on, and frown and fret at the 
weather and the crowd. Pleasant, 
helpful, broadening, stimulating, satis- 
fying thoughts may be mine, if I but 
fill my mind, in odd moments, if I 
have no other time, with material out 
of which thought and the power to 
think is made. 

Imagination, that great door through 
which thought passes from the seen to 

34 



LIVING TEACHERS 

the unseen, how little we use it! Per- 
haps not at all after twenty. I stepped 
into a school-room a while ago where 
forty bright-eyed boys and girls of 
nine and ten years were sitting. Out- 
side the dull gray clouds hung low, 
and suddenly the snow began to fall, 
lazily at first, then in great flurries. 
It was the first snow of the winter. 
The children turned around and 
looked out of the window and at each 
other, happiness on every face. One 
little fellow forgot where he was, and 
said in a loud whisper, "Look, it's 
snowing!" 

The teacher Had been annoyed by 
the wandering eyes, and this brought 
a reprimand. "We all know it's snow- 
ing; we have seen snow before," she 
said in her calm, cold voice, "we are 

35 



LIVING TEACHERS 

drawing maps now." It was true, 
they were and they must. But where 
were memory and imagination? 
Starved! She had forgotten the first 
snow when one is ten and just before 
Christmas! Ah, one does not feel then 
that he has "seen it many times be- 
fore." If in imagination she could 
only have gone back she would have 
been a better teacher that day. 

What men and women miss who 
have starved the imagination and let 
it die! They cannot stand before the 
crowded counter at Christmas and 
know what it means as they watch the 
rough Italian laborer, just from the 
street, buy a curly-haired, blue-eyed 
doll for ten cents, and go out holding 
it carefully under his arm. It is not 
possible for them to hear the angels 

36 



LIVING TEACHERS 

sing over Judean hills. It is not pos- 
sible while walking home some still, 
clear night when the stars are shining, 
to go far away over sea and land to 
the house outside Jerusalem and watch 
the Pharisee, Nicodemus, going slowly 
up the hill to the Master with his 
burning question. Such an one can- 
not feel the thrill of power in the an- 
swer nor catch a sudden glimpse of 
its meaning while he breathes from 
the depth of his own soul — teach me 
also, thou Christ, teach me! To him 
the stars are ordinary, the sky just as 
always, and the story, words. 

How many men and women every- 
where in this world are living starved 
lives— sympathies blunted by disuse, 
the emotions shallow and limited, ca- 
pacity for deep friendships and large 

Z7 



LIVING TEACHERS 

interests growing less with every year. 
They are daily feeding their souls on 
the little, the petty, the mean in human 
life. If I am to be a living teacher, 
these things must not be true of me. 
I must give mind and soul food of the 
right sort, that I may daily take up 
my work with a spirit that is health- 
ful, well nourished and sane. Then 
the powers within me will cry out for 
exercise, and I shall plunge cheerfully 
into the work of my world with all 
that I am. 

There is room for exercise every- 
where. The world offers an unlimited 
athletic field. If your faith is weak, go 
to work, and it won't be so long. That 
eighteen-year-old girl, who came to me 
troubled by doubts of every kind, lost 
them all before she had finished giv- 

38 



LIVING TEACHERS 

ing the fourth music lesson to a fac- 
tory girl whose soul hungered for mu- 
sic, beauty and friendship. The splen- 
did courage and sweet womanliness of 
the girl with no chance, opened her 
eyes. 

That young man, intelligent, full of 
energy, beginning to drift away from 
the church, to shrug his shoulders a 
little at its Sunday school, to spend 
his Sunday evenings in a purely social 
way, turned around completely when 
given charge of a boys' club with a 
room equipped for gymnastics. The 
hard work he put into it, the personal 
contact two nights each week witbu 
twelve and fourteen-year-old boys who 
so frankly admired him, made a fine 
man of him. 

The weak of will, faith and charac- 
39 



LIVING TEACHERS 

ter in the world, like the weak of 
muscle and brain are not those who 
w r ork, but those who stand by waiting. 
Reward for work has always been 
strength and ability to do more work. 
Exercise means increased capacity. 

Light and air, food and exercise for 
mind and spirit, as well as body — these 
will send me to my class a living 
teacher with a real answer to the prob- 
lems of the every day in which my 
pupils live and work out their salva- 
tion. 

Living teachers, then, will have 
power born of the depths of reality. 
They will change, they will grow and 
develop steadily through the years. 
But that is not all. They will awaken 
life. 

Life begets life. To awaken, to 

40 



LIVING TEACHERS 

quicken, to produce life in mind and 
soul — this is the teacher's greatest mis- 
sion. And life is interest. Without 
interest there can be no real life. 

When I left the art gallery that 
afternoon and walked again down the 
hot, dusty street, I saw the same look 
on the faces of men and women that 
you see today in your own city or 
town. Where are the happy, inter- 
ested faces filled with eager anticipa- 
tion? I did not find them. Neither 
can you. 

The tired, fretful, anxious, hurried, 
care-worn faces, some which seem 
bored by life, and many marked by 
sins of passion and indulgence, all 
these are there. They seem to say that 
life is naught but toil and grind, and 

41 



LIVING TEACHERS 

to find pleasure is such a struggle that 
it hardly pays to seek it. 

Ah! it is after a walk through 
crowded city streets that I love my 
children with their bright, eager faces 
filled with interest, with pleasure, 
present and anticipated. Then I know 
what it means to be a teacher of chil- 
dren. Often as I pass from one room 
to another, I feel like whispering to 
them, "Don't grow up — you will lose 
it, the keen interest in life and things 
— you will be like them, the men and 
women I see on train and trolley, on 
ocean liners, in great hotels, at theatre 
doors and in church pews — don't grow 
up." 

I never look into the face of an 
audience of girls in their early teens, 
filled with hope, joy and life, without 

42 



LIVING TEACHERS 

longing to cry out to them, "Don't 
grow up." For I remember how their 
older sisters look after three or four 
years of business, or, worse still, of 
social life. I recall the faces of others 
who have lived longer and have lost 
it— lost it — the keen interest in living 
which is life. 

But some have kept it. Some have 
grown up, and enthusiasm, genuine in- 
terest, love of life is with them still. 
I saw such an one on the train one 
dreary November day. He was a man 
about fifty, quiet in manner, but peo- 
ple glanced up as he passed. It was 
a face one was glad to see. The man 
sitting in front of me made room for 
him and went on looking at his paper. 
He had interested me because he 
studied the column "Male Help 

43 



LIVING TEACHERS 

Wanted" so earnestly and, though a 
young man, seemed discouraged and 
dejected. Finally, he folded the paper 
with a sigh. 

The older man looked keenly at him 
for a moment, then spoke. I could not 
hear the conversation, but it was earn- 
est. A card was passed to the younger 
man and his face brightened. He 
gave his own name and it was written 
in a pocket diary. As we drew into 
the station at Boston they both stood. 
I can see that handshake now. I have 
not seen many like it. The younger 
man's face showed the response he felt, 
and his voice trembled as he said, "It's 
the first encouragement I've had for 
months, and if I don't get the place, 
you've put a little heart into me any- 
way." 

44 



LIVING TEACHERS 

I understood the power and peace 
of that face then. He had been for 
years putting "a little heart" into men. 
As he hurried into the crowd to greet 
a friend, he walked as if he loved to 
live, and a deep happiness and joy 
seemed to be his. I have seen others, 
both men and women, who have kept 
it. Alice Freeman Palmer never lost 
it. She put out her hand and spoke 
to all sorts and conditions of men and 
their world became new. I suppose 
it was the secret of Lincoln. There 
are many in whom the great funda- 
mentals which make men brothers 
throb warm and deep. There ought 
to be more. Perhaps there would be, 
if we teachers had more interest and 
love of life to implant deeply in the 
hearts of our children. 

45 



LIVING TEACHERS 

The keen interest of living — if I 
could only give it back to those who 
have lost it! That is what Christ did. 
With splendid enthusiasm, sane zeal, 
genuine interest he faced that dead 
system of religion which had lost its 
power over life. 

The tithes of mint and annis, the 
washings and the sacrifices, the hope- 
lessly dead letter of the law — empty, 
its warm, vital spirit gone; into that 
world he poured his living, loving, 
eager soul, and it awoke! The Phari- 
sees listened, Sadducees asked ques- 
tions, lawyers debated great problems, 
the rich young ruler sought him out, 
men and women wept tears of real re- 
pentance and began to live new lives. 
Everywhere men awoke, threw the 
husks of a dead system away and be- 

46 



LIVING TEACHERS 

gan to live. Interest, deep, real, life- 
giving, came back to men, and made 
Peter, John and Paul possible. 

How sadly the world needs him to- 
day! How much it needs men and wo- 
men who have caught something of his 
spirit. The church needs them that 
it may have living preachers in its pul- 
pits, living Christians in its pews, liv- 
ing teachers of its children. 

If life, genuine, warm, rich, abund- 
ant, filled the hearts of those of us in 
the church today, men and women 
would not wait so long outside. I 
know it. So do you. Nor would there 
be so many empty chairs in the Sun- 
day school rooms. 

The business of every teacher is* to 
encourage and enthuse every pupil he 
teaches. He is an artist, and the pic- 

47 



LIVING TEACHERS 

ture he paints should awaken the am- 
bition of each child, stir his soul with 
desire to be, and inspire him with con- 
fidence that he can be. And if the 
teacher is keenly alive, a lover of the 
world, feels the response of its great 
heart, his task is perfectly possible. 

I never can forget a magazine 
story, "The Artist's Masterpiece," told 
me by a friend some years ago. It is 
a wonderful story and shows just what 
all I have been saying means. 

Back into the country town that 
gave him birth, the story says, came 
the great artist, proud of all the honor 
and success hard work had brought to 
him. He wanted rest, to see the old 
places he loved and live all over again 
the simple, natural life of his boyhood. 

At first the people were afraid of 

48 



LIVING TEACHERS 

his fame, but in a few weeks he was 
the interested friend of men, women 
and children, trusted and loved by all 

save one — Mr. A . 

Ten years before, Mr. A — 



come a stranger to the town. He said 
nothing about himself, had no letters 
of introduction, would answer no ques- 
tions. He opened a law office where 
he spent his days ; at night he studied. 
He was a mystery. Rumor said that 
an important position awaited him in 
a distant city, but he would not return. 
One day the town was greatly excited 
over a consulship in a distant land 
which was offered him. He refused 
to accept it. After a time they grew 
accustomed to him, spoke of him in 
half suspicious tones, and left him to 
himself. 

49 



LIVING TEACHERS 

The artist had tried in vain to know 
him. But one day, in response to the 
confidence in him which he had ex- 
pressed, Mr. A said that he had 

made a mistake in his life, lost his 
courage, and wished to forget. He 
would say no more. After that, seeing 
him walk slowly along, head down, 
listless and not caring, a great desire 
to help him find life again, filled the 
artist's soul. 

He had promised himself a full 
year of rest, but now sought out a 
studio and began to paint. Eagerly, 
steadily, with keenest enthusiasm he 
labored. Months passed and his picture 
was finished. That day he sought Mr. 

A in his office and asked him to 

come down and see the picture. "It is 
my masterpiece," he said, "I shall 

50 



LIVING TEACHERS 

never do anything better, I have put 
all my art into it. No one has seen it 
yet. Will you look at it?" 

Mr. A seemed pleased. They 

walked together to the studio. The 
artist stepped behind the great canvas 
stretched across the room. He pulled 
aside the crimson curtain, and there 

before him Mr. A saw himself. 

Yet it was not he, for the man upon 
the canvas faced the world straight, 
shoulders thrown back, head erect, am- 
bition, desire, hope, in attitude and ex- 
pression. 

For a long time he gazed in silence. 
The artist waited breathlessly to see if 
his masterpiece were a success or fail- 
ure. At last Mr. A spoke. "He 

thinks I'm that," he said. "He sees 
that in me." Then a pause. "Am I 

51 



LIVING TEACHERS 

that? Can I be that?" In a moment 
the artist stood beside him. Together 
they looked at the man on the canvas 
while the other asked again, "Can I 
be that?" "Yes," said the artist, and it 
seemed the voice of the masterpiece. 

Then said Mr. A , gazing straight 

at it, "I will go back, I will be that!' 
And he went from the studio, courage, 
hope, confidence in every step. 

Men and women, that is what I 
mean. The living teacher is an artist. 
He paints for every one he teaches, a 
masterpiece, and brings him face to 
face with it. Whether it be a boy 
with the world all new before him, or 
a girl filled with the joy of living, a 
man or woman who has tried life and 
found it hard — as he looks at the pic- 
ture of himself there is a new liqht in 

32 



LIVING TEACHERS 

his eyes and a new look on his face as 
he says, "Am I that? — Can I be that? 1 ' 
And perchance the teacher who stands 
by to answer "Yes," may hear him say, 
"I will be that," and see him go with 
courage and confidence into his world. 
A living teacher! "Am I that?" 
"Can I be that?" The Great Artist 
answers "Yes," and with courage, hope 
and confidence my soul replies, "I will 
be that." 



53 



